The background_crash process is created by Firebase Crash Reporting. That's why you're seeing the duplicate messages, but I don't think its the root cause here. I'm going to file the hang as an issue upstream with the Google Play services team, but there is probably a workaround you can use in the mean time:

Because you're specifying com.google.android.gms:play-services:9.0.0 as a dependency you're bringing in literally all of Google Play services - which is a lot!

I would recommend replacing that line with the specific dependencies you need. You can find a full list here. As an example, if you're using Maps and Google Sign In, you might specify: